Does life begin at conception? I think it does.

[Prometheus]

Quote by: Pale RIder This is one of the most straight forward issues that you are likely to encounter. It only becomes ambiguious when one side of the argument begins to run from the straight forward truth.

Now there you go making it all black and white. I though that was a folly of youth.

Actually, a sperm can never reproduce.

Refer to the life cycle of a moss or a bryophyte. It demonstrates my point perfectly.
http://www.sbs.auckland.ac.nz/info/s...cycle_moss.gif

That is not how sperm cells are created.

It is by extention. A sperm creates a human which creates other sperm. Just like the sporophite generation makes a gametophite generation, that makes another sporophite.

A sperm either contributes its half set of chromosomes to an egg's half set of chromosomes and a new human comes into being,

Just like a man must find a woman, a sperm must find an egg. It's shorter life time and a more easily defined goal, but there is really no qualitative difference.

or it lives out a pre programmed life span and is reabsorbed into your body.

There are plenty of people willing to argue that we have no more free will then a sperm. That our lives are just as pointless and scripted. As for being reabsorbed, this is the case with many sporophite generations. The moss just dies and falls off. We die and rot into the ground. No real difference.

What is life? Science has come up with a perfectly adequate definition. Life is the property or quality that distinguishes living organisms from dead organisms and inanimate matter, manifested in functions such as metabolism, growth, reproduction, and response to stimuli or adaptation to the environment originating from within the organism

Yes, but *which* of those functions are required to be life? What is the bare minimum? I could conceive of a possible creature that we would all consider living, yet lacks any one or combination of those factors (except maybe reproduction). There is no concrete definition accepted by scientists at large, that excludes a sperm (or an egg) from being considered "alive".

You also seem to be just a bit unclear as to what constitutes potential human beings and what constitutes actual human beings. Sperm and eggs represent potential humans because they are unique cells. They are the only cells in our bodies that have only half a set of chromosomes and they are like this for a specific reason. Alone though, they are no more important than any other cell in your body. Once they meet, however, both sperm and egg cease to exist. Their potential is realized and a new living human being comes into being.

An egg and sperm are potential human beings. Just like a pile of ore is a potential car. The only thing that seperates that pile of ore from being a car, is the right conditions and manipulations. The only thing that seperates a blastocyst from a human is the right conditions and manipulations. The only thing that seperates a sperm from being a person is the right conditions and manipulations. There is no philosophical, ethical or scientific way to draw the line at conception.

I have asked repeatedly for someone, anyone from the pro choice side of this discussion to provide reference to any actual science that suggests that the offspring of two human beings is ever anything other than a human being.

Even asking for such a thing is silly. NO one has claimed that such a thing exists. It is a totally moot point.

I have referenced the better part of a dozen medical textbooks that say specifically that we are living humans from the moment of our conception. If, as the pro choice sided argues, we are not human from the beginning, it shoud be very easy to provide credible documentation to prove the point. None is forthcoming. Perhaps you can provide it.

No explination is forthcoming because "human" is a really subjective term. Scientists can't draw the line for the reason I explained above. It would be an arbitrary definition. Don't ask science for answers it cannot provide.

[Athena]

Quote by: Pale RIder Pre-emptive death penalty....Great. You libs think of everything. Odd though, that you would allow a woman to hand out a death penalty on her say so alone yet your heart bleeds for those who get the benefit of trial and appeal upon appeal.

I just stated a fact, the crime rate went down when abortions became illegal. You are the one who put meaning to the fact and it is not the meaning I would attack to the fact. Rather I would say, we might want to look into the cause of the fact, and then do something about the cause, such as work on a more caring society. Is a bleeding heart a liberal? Is a bleeding heart a caring person who values life? What human values are you attacking when you attack bleeding heart liberals? I am so confused by this abortion arguement.

How long should we keep an unwanted human being alive, and who is responsible for keeping that human being alive?

[Athena]

Quote by: Pale RIder You paint a pretty picture. Too bad it is nothing more than a screen, erected to hide the fact that an unborn child is being torn limb from limb, or drowned in salt water every time an abortion is performed. Did you know that neuroscientists have held for decades that all unborns past the age of 8 weeks should be given a general anesthetic since they feel the exquisite pain of being torn limb from limb just the same as you would? Pictures are nice, but there is something to be said for the naked truth as well.

Like you totally missed the point. The point is baby does not die and is spiritually connected to the parents. It remains conscious of being aborted and we can not escape the reality of having conceived a child and the existing bonds. How is this a pretty picture?

"He who is false to the present duty breaks a thread in the loom and will find the flaw in the pattern, when, perhaps, it will be too late to repair."

"Nothing , then, can be so pitiful, futile, and tragic as to try to avoid the responsibilities of sex. They are inevitable; they are imposed by heaven and they are divinely arranged for our highest good. It is necessary for us to accept them and to discharge them nolby. It is the solemn obligation of men and women to marry, to rear children, to make their home an asylum for the helpless members of their family circle; to toil, to economize, to sacfirce and, if necessary, to die for others." Charles Frederic Goss- Husband, Wife and Home"

[Athena]

Quote by: The Kid Unfortunately there is no way to regulate as the process of extraction for the afore mentioned in your case would mean every time they tried to have a kid the embryo would have to be extracted, instead of the already used method of extracting many eggs. They actually don’t have the inalienable right, because in a life time a woman only uses a few at beat of the thousand of eggs. It’s arguable that it is a random lottery of selection for a child form the eggs but the fact remains that they mostly will not be used. point again is debatable but i would think the overall good of it is worth it because they are not living and those that can be considered living have been fertillized and are living.

When a pregnat rabbit is frightened, it aborts. I think some people are making way too a deal over fertilized eggs.

How about a law requiring men and women to have sex to assure the most possible eggs and sperms have a chance for life? Then we need an institution to assure the well being of all these humans with a right to life. And we need to decide what is essential to these humans and their right to life, and at what time these depend beings should be declared independent, and if beyond this age there any conditions which would qualify this as a dependent again. Need a new thread for this.

[northtexan]

Quote by: MerlinsByte merlin writes...All 1280 posts on this thread boils down to one simple question. When is the fertilized egg self aware? Don't know huh? then dont kill it you may be committing murder, and that makes you a vile thing indeed. All the more vile if this murder is done for convenience or for birth control.

I don't know when a human becomes self aware. I do have a handle on when it is not: not a fertilized egg, not a blastula, not an embryo, not a twelve-week fetus, not a 19-week fetus if its brain has not yet begun to function, not any fetus if its brain has not begun to function. As I have noted, I give the benefit of the doubt to the fetus whose brain has begun to function. Should such fetuses ever be killed? I say 'yes' if such a fetus is a major biological risk to the life or health of the mother and if the mother chooses to abort -- then, it's a matter of balancing risks and rights. I don't know for sure that a newborn has become self-aware; but any killing of newborns is murder. We accept that, it has long legal precedent, there is no reason to change it -- there is no longer the biological conflict with the life or health of the mother.

[northtexan]

Quote by: Savant I think most everyone here could agree that a fetus isn't self aware... but I dont think that helps or hurts either "side" of the abortion debate.

I don't know whether a brain-born fetus is self-aware, but I note that for all I know it might be. True, on theoretical bases, I suspect not -- that self-awareness requires birth and interaction with other humans. But I am not comfortable letting such suspicions rule. So I think that the question and ones answer to it can help anyone willing to ask it. Whether or not it politically helps any side (and there are more than two) in the abortion debate is secondary.

[northtexan]

Quote by: MerlinsByte mb sez...Everyone on the planet could agree that you aren't self aware, but only you would know for sure, so the consensus of a misinformed majority doesn't make it right. Self awareness has everything to do with abortion being right or wrong, because if it is self aware it is human. mb

Merlin, on that principle, I agree with you. Where we disagree: (1) when it could be; and (2) what to do about it.

[Prometheus]

Forget what or who is self aware. There are people born who are mentally retarded to the point that they are not self aware. It's a moot point.

Besides, "self aware" is a fuzzy term. We call ourselves "self aware" but have no idea what it means. It may be nothing more than a special instinct that we have.

[northtexan]

Quote by: Savant You keep looking for that sacred on/off switch. Self awareness alone as a measure of humanity would not help pro-life ideas, and would make a poor pro-choice argument. I agree there. However self awareness can still be a consideration when deciding at what point in development a human fetus becomes a living person.

If self-awareness makes sense as a concept, whether it hurts or helps a given 'camp' is irrelevant. In fact, it cannot be determined when someone becomes self-aware; however, we can know when a fetus or earlier development CANNOT. This can provide some guidance.

Now, what effect would use of brain-birth as a dividing line have on various 'camps.' Well, that depends on how the concept is used. In one respect, the anti-choice camp loses -- they lose the first 22 weeks or so entirely. However, should the principle of freer access (financially as well as legally) to abortion in the early weeks be implemented, there would be far fewer third-trimester abortions, which would greatly aid those primarily concerned with such late abortions. The stem-cell camp would gain everything by this definition, as would those concerned with the morning-after pill, and with access to all forms of birth control generally. The pro-choice camp, and those primarily concerned with the life and health of the mother, could gain or lose depending on what rules are applied in the third trimester: if abortion were absolutely outlawed then, there would be major threats to the life and health of mothers, and pro-choice would obviously suffer. On the other hand, if the life and health of the mother were accepted as ruling principles, then the pro-choice camp would lose nothing and would gain greatly: basically, Roe v. Wade would be intact.

No, I don't see any such outcome being accepted, because the anti-choice forces are just that: they are unwilling to accept choice, no matter how logical. This will have to be fought politically for decades to come, and pro-choice can only hold to the reality that when push comes to shove, most people want the flexibility of access to abortion when the topic becomes important to their own loved ones; and to the hope that the population will remain at least this logical.

Quote by: Savant It doesn't mean that anyone who dares to consider self awareness must then advocate killing infants or risk becoming a "dishonest pro-choicer". Rather, the lack of self awareness could be one of many factors weighed in. One might consider that it can not sense pain, is not viable, is not self aware, is not wanted, is not healthy, is not a boy, is not in the appropriate environment, and I'm sure a milion other possible factors. Acknowledge that self-awareness is one factor does not require that you eliminate all things that are not self-aware.

[Pale RIder]

Quote by: Prometheus Now there you go making it all black and white. I though that was a folly of youth.

No, the folly of youth is not being able to separate the B&W issues from those that have some gray. It has been my experience though that if most subjects are approached honestly, they tend to be mostly B&W. They only get gray when you try to avoid the truth.

Quote by: Prometheus Refer to the life cycle of a moss or a bryophyte. It demonstrates my point perfectly. http://www.sbs.auckland.ac.nz/info/s...cycle_moss.gif

Lets not start off being intellectually dishonest. It is human beings that we are talking about and referring me to the life cycle of a moss or bryophyte (which I am familiar with) is not going to help make your case. The fact remains that a sperm can not reproduce itself.

Quote by: Prometheus It is by extention. A sperm creates a human which creates other sperm. Just like the sporophite generation makes a gametophite generation, that makes another sporophite.

First, a sperm does not create a human. A sperm only contributes half a set of chromosomes towards the creation of another human. Secondly even if a sperm created another human, what if the human was femal. It would not be producing any sperm there. That is one of the drawbacks to being intellectually dishonest, especially with someone who is very familiar with the subject matter. The fact still remains that a sperm can not reproduce itself. Any portion of your argument that was founded on that statement is invalid as it is founded in a biological fallacy.

Quote by: Prometheus Just like a man must find a woman, a sperm must find an egg. It's shorter life time and a more easily defined goal, but there is really no qualitative difference.[

Sperm don't have goals. And sperm don't know any more about eggs than they know about golf. Sperm swim until they recieve chemical instructions to do something else. If you are not being deliberately obtuse and really don't recognize the difference between the function of sperm and the life of humans, perhaps some further biological, and philosophical education is in order.

Quote by: Prometheus There are plenty of people willing to argue that we have no more free will then a sperm. That our lives are just as pointless and scripted. As for being reabsorbed, this is the case with many sporophite generations. The moss just dies and falls off. We die and rot into the ground. No real difference.

There are still people who will argue that the earth is flat and that it sits on the back of a great tortiose as well. You can find people who will argue anything. Are you one who would argue that you have no more free will than a sperm cell? If not, the fact that there are those who would make the argument has no bearing on this discussion.

Quote by: Prometheus Yes, but *which* of those functions are required to be life? What is the bare minimum? I could conceive of a possible creature that we would all consider living, yet lacks any one or combination of those factors (except maybe reproduction). There is no concrete definition accepted by scientists at large, that excludes a sperm (or an egg) from being considered "alive".

Biologically speaking, it would be difficult to have just one of the attributes. They tend to fuel each other. I would never argue that a sperm cell is not alive. Of course it is a living cell. But it is not an individual human being. It's DNA fingerprint identifies it as a cell from an individual's body. Unborns meet the scientific requirements for life. They are alive. In fact, they exhibit all of the above criteria.

Quote by: Prometheus An egg and sperm are potential human beings. Just like a pile of ore is a potential car. The only thing that seperates that pile of ore from being a car, is the right conditions and manipulations. The only thing that seperates a blastocyst from a human is the right conditions and manipulations. The only thing that seperates a sperm from being a person is the right conditions and manipulations. There is no philosophical, ethical or scientific way to draw the line at conception.

A blastocyst is not separated from a human being. A blastocyst is a human being at a particular stage of life. You did not grow out of a blastocyst, you once were a blastocyst. The automobile analogy does not hold up because a pile of ore can never be the car in its entirety at any stage of production. The ore can only represent part of the raw materials needed to build a car. You were once a blastocyst, however, in your entirety.

Quote by: Prometheus Even asking for such a thing is silly. NO one has claimed that such a thing exists. It is a totally moot point.

Of course it is silly. Because there is no credible scientific authority that would suggest that the offspring of two human beings is ever anything other than a human being. Far from being moot, however, it is the central point in this discussion. If unborns are in fact human beings, in this country, they have an inalienable right to life. If they are not human then they are no more important than fingernail clippings. I have referenced quite a bit of credible scientific material that states in no uncertain terms that we are indeed human beings from the moment of our conception and nothing has been referenced from the other side that corroborates their position in even the smallest way. If you are suggesting that it is perfectly acceptable to kill unborns, the onus falls upon you to demonstrate that you are not killing human beings. To date, no pro choicer has even remotely made the argument that the offspring of two humans is anything but a human.

Quote by: Prometheus No explination is forthcoming because "human" is a really subjective term. Scientists can't draw the line for the reason I explained above. It would be an arbitrary definition. Don't ask science for answers it cannot provide.

Human is not a subjective term. The word human describes a member of genus homo, and especially of the species H. sapiens. H. sapiens is far from an etherial subjective term. H. sapien is an excruciatingly explicit in what it describes, and an unborn by its very nature meets the criteria to belong to genus homo species H. sapiens.

It took very little effort to produce medical textbooks that state specifically that we are living human beings from the moment of our conception. If this is not the case, one would think that it would be just as easy to produce medical textbooks that state as much. That is not the case. An explicit explaination was forthcoming...just not one that corroborated your argument.

[northtexan]

Quote by: Prometheus Forget what or who is self aware. There are people born who are mentally retarded to the point that they are not self aware. It's a moot point. Besides, "self aware" is a fuzzy term. We call ourselves "self aware" but have no idea what it means. It may be nothing more than a special instinct that we have.

I actually doubt that a surviving person afflicted with MR does not have self-awareness. In any case, I WILL NOT forget self awareness but will fight for both choice for the mother of a fetus who cannot be self-aware and for the rights of those known to be self aware. What is it about being a human that gives us dignity, that makes life worthwhile, that gives us a right to life? If it is not consciousness, self-awareness, and related abilities, even if severely constricted, then I don't know what does.

[to others in addition to Prometheus:]
If you think that nothing gives humans that dignity, then I applaud your right to believe that but caution you not to act on it.

Or if, like Pale Rider, you think that it is mere biology that gives humans that dignity, I find that position disgusting -- but of course it is your right to hold disgusting positions.

Or if you define such dignity in terms of a supernatural soul or some other unmeasurable entity, I of course recognize your freedom of religion to believe such things -- but I deny your right to impose your religious beliefs on others.

[Pale RIder]

Quote by: Savant You should capitlize your Truth's, makes them more convincing.

The fact that they are true should be enough for thinking people

Quote by: Savant Or, one might see us (humans) as the byproduct of the sperm's comlicated reproductive process.... I like that.

Stick with it. It makes more sense than most of your theories.

Quote by: Savant That definition could prove both my sperm and my laptop are alive.

Yep.. I can see how you would get organic and inorganic matter confused.

Quote by: Savant Says you.

And the better part of a dozen medical textbooks. I can provide more but what would be the use?

Quote by: Savant What documentation would prove the point that the meaning of life can't be documented. If anyone found these documents wouldn't they negate their own existance...

One doesn't need to know the meaning of life in order to adequately prove the fact of life.

[Pale RIder]

Quote by: Athena I just stated a fact, the crime rate went down when abortions became illegal. You are the one who put meaning to the fact and it is not the meaning I would attack to the fact. Rather I would say, we might want to look into the cause of the fact, and then do something about the cause, such as work on a more caring society. Is a bleeding heart a liberal? Is a bleeding heart a caring person who values life? What human values are you attacking when you attack bleeding heart liberals? I am so confused by this abortion arguement. How long should we keep an unwanted human being alive, and who is responsible for keeping that human being alive?

I would suppose that if I could randomly kill 40 million people, that there woud be an effect upon any particular statistic that you chose to name. Crime went down, ok. Social security became seriously underfunded. What is your point?

[Pale RIder]

Quote by: northtexan Or if, like Pale Rider, you think that it is mere biology that gives humans that dignity, I find that position disgusting -- but of course it is your right to hold disgusting positions.

Actually I never said a thing about dignity. I said that it is through biology that we are able to define who is human and who is not. Our inalienable rights are ours by virtue of simply being human, not by dignity, awareness, flatulence or any other attribute.

[sullie]

Quote by: bishop your analogy of killing someone in your basement is a stretch.. the zygote is a part of the woman's body. it belongs to her body. does she not have the right to choose whether/not this entity stays within her and grows until birth? the crux of the issue as i see it is whether/not the woman has the rights to control her own body. how do you define life? i think that question supercedes the one you've asked in this thread. is life defined by a clump of cells, or by something that thinks, has a conscience, etc? the classic characterization of when life begins was at the quickening, when the fetus would kick around in the mother's womb. that sort of event is undeniably human. what about a zygote? even further, a sperm and an egg could also be termed alive, by the same notion as a clump of cells could. i completely oppose late term abortions, but i support early term abortions. my definition of life (regarding this topic) must differ from yours.

Biship.... Life begins just like you began.. So you must be saying your mother should have gotten rid of her clump of cells before it became you right?

[ihaQ]

Quote by: Pale RIder The founding documents of the US. If you live somewhere else, perhaps humans don't have an inalienable right to live in which case, I am sorry for you. But here, it is encoded into our very founding documents.

The question I posed was meant to produce an answer as to why the right to life is inalienable not if you have a right to life. Certainly we here in Canada have a constitutional right to life, liberty blaleelah but, as anyone can concieve, the interpretation or intrinistic validity of legislation is not always absolute.

The right to life is made important by the society that is able to will and sustain that right. Life is a privelege, because/and it is existentially worthless as long as the metaphysical question of 'why are we?' remains unanswered. So if life is not a universal absolute value, and it is safe to say that some life (at the very least) is expendable for purposes of anthropological survival, what makes the right to life 'inalienable'?

[MerlinsByte]

Quote by: The Kid....embryonic stem cell research isn't wrong (sorry I cut and lost the original reply)

Discarded embryos what's that dead babies?..

.Anyway, we can do stem cell research without using (and killing) embryos. You may have read some of my posts and think me anti science, no I am pro science but my religion trumps my science interest anyday!

I was a research chemist and then a chemical engineer for more than 20(!) years. After, becoming rather horrified,and angered by being forced to ignore moral implications of the research we were doing and hating my job, and myself, and everything that goes with the main linescience/industural / military/ money thing, I traded in my lab coat for a pallet and software and am pursuing my true interests which are art and pure research of science and religion.

So I speak from the position of some experience, so let me tell you that if we ever allow embryonic stem cell research it won't be long before we are growing babies exclusively for their brain cells. So as of now I am 100% against it (ESCR).

yeah dead babies indeed....

[Prometheus]

Quote by: Pale RIder Lets not start off being intellectually dishonest. It is human beings that we are talking about and referring me to the life cycle of a moss or bryophyte (which I am familiar with) is not going to help make your case.

It is not intellectually dishonest to refer to a moss lifecycle. What I was showing is that even though gametophyte or sporophyte generations may be minimalized, they are no less valid then the major generation. Depending on the organism, with the sporophyte or gametophytes may be in dominance. Again, it is only a quantitative matter. You can't dismiss it just because it is a small part of the life cycle.

The fact remains that a sperm can not reproduce itself.

No more or less then I can reproduce myself. For me to reproduce myself I need a woman. For a sperm to reproduce it needs an egg. You can't dismiss it because of it's short and small life.

First, a sperm does not create a human. A sperm only contributes half a set of chromosomes towards the creation of another human.

You could say the *exact* same think about you or me. We alone can't make a human, and we only contribute half.

Secondly even if a sperm created another human, what if the human was femal. It would not be producing any sperm there.

If I don't get laid, I can't reproduce either. It's about the right set of situations. And if the sperm is the progenator of a daughter, then look at her sons.

That is one of the drawbacks to being intellectually dishonest, especially with someone who is very familiar with the subject matter.

I'm assuming this is a throw away statement. I was certainly not trying to argue to someone who was ignorant. And the science in this discussion is no more advanced that that taught in high school, so you can't claim any merit in "being familliar with the subject matter". And let's stop bandying about accusations of dishonesty. It reminds me of starboy way too much.

The fact still remains that a sperm can not reproduce itself. Any portion of your argument that was founded on that statement is invalid as it is founded in a biological fallacy.

As I've said, unless you undergoe bianary fission, neither can any other organism. A sperm can reproduce itself just as much as you can.

Sperm don't have goals. And sperm don't know any more about eggs than they know about golf. Sperm swim until they recieve chemical instructions to do something else.

From a scientific standpoint, we are no more qualitatively sophistocated. We are a bunch of chemicals responding to stimuli. The only difference in a quantitative one of complexity. You have to remove humanism and warm and fuzzys from a scientific discussion.

If you are not being deliberately obtuse and really don't recognize the difference between the function of sperm and the life of humans, perhaps some further biological, and philosophical education is in order.

Again, you are looking at it from the wring standpoint. You are making differentiations that are not valid in science. You can't make quantitative disdinctions. And don't go about impuning my biological credentials. I am a senior double majoring in molecular biology and bioinformatics. As for philosophical, I have no especial merit there (except for years in competetive debate, where philosophy comes up all the time). But philosophy is not part of what I am trying to say. I am trying to make a scientific point. it may have philosiphical implications, but what I am getting at, is that the beginning and ending of a potential human life is not something science can define.

Are you one who would argue that you have no more free will than a sperm cell? If not, the fact that there are those who would make the argument has no bearing on this discussion.

I'm a debator, I can argue anything. But no, I don't believe it. But that's irrelevant. We are discussing what science has to say on the issue. In science, there is no "purpose" in life past passing one's genes. In that respect, man and sperm are identical.

Biologically speaking, it would be difficult to have just one of the attributes. They tend to fuel each other. I would never argue that a sperm cell is not alive. Of course it is a living cell. But it is not an individual human being. It's DNA fingerprint identifies it as a cell from an individual's body. Unborns meet the scientific requirements for life. They are alive. In fact, they exhibit all of the above criteria.

I agree that it would be difficult to lack those attributes, but there are plenty of imaginable scenarios. When you define something you need to try to make it accurately catagorize every imaginable situation. Science has not done this suitibley yet. It get's especially hard when you consider extraterestrial life. And even harder when you try to bring in self awareness and sentience.

A blastocyst is not separated from a human being. A blastocyst is a human being at a particular stage of life. You did not grow out of a blastocyst, you once were a blastocyst. The automobile analogy does not hold up because a pile of ore can never be the car in its entirety at any stage of production. The ore can only represent part of the raw materials needed to build a car. You were once a blastocyst, however, in your entirety.

I was once a blastocyst. I was also once a sperm and egg seperately. I was also once a pile of unassimilated carbon. Before that I was an unconglomerated collection of quarks and gluons. I was also once two seperate people whe lived thousands of miles apart. Just like the sperm and egg that were united under the right situation, and the blastocyst that developed in the right situation. You can't draw an arbitrary line.

If unborns are in fact human beings, in this country, they have an inalienable right to life.

I am not arguing either way. What I am getting at, is that conception is an arbitrary point. I have said from the beginning that I have no firm stance on this issue.

I have referenced quite a bit of credible scientific material that states in no uncertain terms that we are indeed human beings from the moment of our conception and nothing has been referenced from the other side that corroborates their position in even the smallest way.

You cannot present "evidance" either way. There is no scholarly scientific study that can answer an ethical question. Science *cannot* draw an arbitrary line, so there can be no evidance about this.

If you are suggesting that it is perfectly acceptable to kill unborns, the onus falls upon you to demonstrate that you are not killing human beings. To date, no pro choicer has even remotely made the argument that the offspring of two humans is anything but a human.

I have taken no stance. I don't have to "prove" anything about huma beings. No one can prove an ethical point. All I am getting at is the inherent ambiguity and subjectivity of this.

Human is not a subjective term. The word human describes a member of genus homo, and especially of the species H. sapiens. H. sapiens is far from an etherial subjective term. H. sapien is an excruciatingly explicit in what it describes, and an unborn by its very nature meets the criteria to belong to genus homo species H. sapiens.

Firstly, since humanity is the topic of this rather definitional debate, you can't use your restrictive definition as an on face defeat. When we use the word "human" we mean more than just the DNA that makes a homo sapiens. We are talking about a personality, a soal, what have you. When speaking of ethics, you can't suddenly hide behind an oversimplified taxonomical definition. Ethics are always more complicated than that.

It took very little effort to produce medical textbooks that state specifically that we are living human beings from the moment of our conception. If this is not the case, one would think that it would be just as easy to produce medical textbooks that state as much. That is not the case. An explicit explaination wa